Leon Potter
by Lomonaaeren
Summary: Gen, AU. The moment that Harry's name comes out of the Goblet of Fire, a stranger appears—a Potter relative that Harry never knew he had. The stranger stands up for Harry, adopts him, and makes sure that no one can touch him. It's only later that Harry knows why. Time travel, twoshot. COMPLETE.
1. Chapter 1

**Title: **Leon Potter  
**Disclaimer: **J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.  
**Pairing: **None, gen  
**Content Notes: **Angst, AU of GoF, time travel, violence, minor character death, present tense, Master of Death Harry Potter  
**Rating**: PG-13  
**Wordcount: **This part 3800  
**Summary: **The moment that Harry's name comes out of the Goblet of Fire, a stranger appears—a Potter relative that Harry never knew he had. The stranger stands up for Harry, adopts him, and makes sure that no one can touch him. It's only later that Harry knows why.  
**Author's Notes: **This is one of my "From Samhain to the Solstice" fics. It has two parts, and the second will be posted tomorrow.

**Leon Potter**

"I really didn't put my name in the Goblet, Headmaster. I _really _didn't."

"I wish you would all stop staring at him so suspiciously. The boy is right, you know."

Harry flinches before he can stop himself. The voice is strange, and adult, and he doesn't want anyone intruding right now. He turns around, wondering if this is a newspaper reporter or someone from Durmstrang come to make his life miserable.

But it's not. There's a man standing before him with a tangle of dark brown hair falling to his shoulders, and green eyes so weary that Harry thinks it's like looking into a mirror. They're not the exact same shade of green as his, though, Harry decides after a second. The man is older and colder and harder. He doesn't wear glasses. He has a wand in his hand that's strange-looking and has carvings on it. The man isn't aiming it at anybody, but he's holding the wand in a way that says he definitely could if he wanted to.

"Who are you?" Karkaroff demands.

"One of young Harry's relatives," the man says. He turns away from Karkaroff and Dumbledore and Madame Maxine and the other Champions like they don't exist, facing Harry. "All right there, Harry?"

"No," Harry says, because he's stuck on the words. "You can't be one of my _relatives! _I don't have any left except the Dursleys."

"I'm sorry," the man says, his voice low. "My name's Leon Potter. I couldn't come before because there were—well, huge barriers in the way. Ones I couldn't cross. But I'm here now." For some reason, he looks at his wand, and then he looks at Harry again.

"Who would you be?" Dumbledore asks. Harry looks at the Headmaster and his twinkling eyes, and thinks that Dumbledore is upset even though he's smiling. It's a strange feeling to have.

"Leon Potter. I thought I said." The man's voice is cooler.

"There is no Leon Potter." That's Professor Snape, his voice sliding in and making anxiety tangle up in Harry's stomach until it feels like he's going to vomit snowballs. "I know the Potter family tree. I helped Albus investigate it after the death of Lily and James Potter. The _Boy-Who-Lived _has no magical relatives left."

"Not true," the man says, glaring at Professor Snape. Harry has the weird feeling that the man respects the professor but doesn't like him all that much. "If you investigated the family tree, you must have noticed that there was a first cousin to Charlus and Fleamont Potter on there, yes? Elsie Potter?"

"She died without issue."

"No." Leon's smile is sad for a second. "She died without legally-acknowledged issue. She never told me who my father was, let alone anyone else."

Dumbledore looks at him for a second, and then frowns. "As interesting as this is, Mr. Potter, we are debating _Harry _Potter's entrance into the Triwizard Tournament right now, not who his relatives are."

"And it should be simple enough to prove that he didn't enter the Tournament." The man turns in place for a second, looking around the room as though he expects someone else to be there. "Where is Professor Moody?"

"Right here," the professor grunts as he stumps into the room. He freezes when he sees the man, though. Harry thinks it's the first time he's seen the professor's magical eye and his normal one pointed in the same direction. "Who _are _you?"

"I could ask the same of you," the man says, and his wand slashes up and at the stones of the wall and down to the side.

Professor Moody leans over and starts vomiting. Dumbledore and Snape both leap forwards, but they hit some kind of barrier that's sprung up from the floor. Harry is on the other side of the barrier with—Leon? Can he think of him that way? He stares at the man, and then the vomiting professor on the floor.

"Why did you want him to do that?" he whispers.

"Because Polyjuice Potion only remains effective for as long as it's actually in the body."

Harry feels like his eyes are still widening in realization when Moody's body starts twisting and warping. Suddenly he has two legs, and the wooden one is lying on the floor, and so is his magical eye. He leaps up, snarling. He's a crazy-looking man with tangled hair and staring blue eyes. Harry thinks he looks an awful lot like Mr. Crouch.

Leon Stuns him before he can say anything. Then he binds him in ropes, cleans up the vomit, and lowers the barrier so the other professors and Headmasters can get through.

"Bartemius Crouch, Junior," he says into the silence. "Using Polyjuice Potion to appear as Alastor Moody. He was the one who put Harry's name into the Goblet."

Harry swallows and says nothing, because he doesn't understand anything that's going on. It's Dumbledore who demands, "How did you know that?"

"It's obvious if one studies prison records and if one _knows _Alastor Moody enough to know what he really behaves like. He's one of your friends, Professor Dumbledore. Surely you should know that this imposter's behavior was dangerously unlike a man you had hired to teach Defense Against the Dark Arts?"

Dumbledore says nothing, but bends over the body. Snape is standing there with wide eyes, and he nods when Karkaroff hisses a question at him. Then he strides over and pulls back the fallen man's left sleeve. Harry recoils when he sees the same Dark Mark that was above the Quidditch World Cup on his arm.

"What's going on?" Harry whispers.

"That man is really Mr. Crouch's son," Leon murmurs back. "A convicted Death Eater. He supposedly died in prison, but in reality, Mr. Crouch sneaked his wife in and left her there to die in her son's place. _Barty _Crouch has been free ever since."

Harry still has no end of questions, but Dumbledore straightens up and announces, "Yes, in fact, Mr. Potter the Elder is quite correct. This is Barty Crouch, Jr. I remember him from the trial that I oversaw."

"We still have no proof that he was the one who put the little boy's name in the Goblet," Fleur says in her French accent.

"I can provide you that proof," Leon offers. "Either with a memory or with Veritaserum, if you have some on hand." He looks at Snape, who narrows his eyes and then nods once.

"It would be illegal to dose him with Veritaserum without his consent," Dumbledore says, but he looks shaken.

"Then hand him over to the Aurors," suggests Leon. He actually sounds bored, although Harry doesn't know _how. _"But in the meantime, I'm sure that Mr. Crouch has Mr. Moody imprisoned somewhere, as Polyjuice is not effective with dead hair. You'll want to search his quarters and find him."

"Of—of course." Dumbledore stares hard at both of them for a second.

"Does this mean I don't have to compete in the Tournament?" Harry asks.

"Yes, yes, it does." Dumbledore still acts as though someone's hit him over the head with a hammer, but Harry can sort of understand. His own head is whirling dizzily. "If you will remain within Hogwarts, Mr. Potter? I will want to speak with you."

"Of course." Leon reaches out and catches Harry's arm. "I'll be with Harry. I have the feeling he'd like to ask me some questions."

Harry feels a little less dizzy at that. Someone who came in and rescued him and then was going to let him _ask questions_?

Leon is already his favorite relative ever.

* * *

"Here. You look as if you haven't had anything to eat in years."

Harry flushes a little—it isn't his fault that he still looks skinny two months after he left the Dursleys—but he accepts the cake and cup of tea that Leon holds out to him. A house-elf Harry never saw before popped in and left it a few moments ago. Leon is eating his own cake, but in a distracted way, frowning at the wall.

"Leon?"

When Leon glances at him, Harry thinks that he's going to scold him for using his first name, but all he does is smile a little. "Yes?" Then he pauses as if thinking about something and waves his wand to lock the door of the little room they're in. Harry doesn't think it used to be a classroom since it has a fireplace, but he has no idea what it was. It's small and only has a table and two chairs.

"How are we related? I mean, are you my cousin?"

"Yes, I am, Harry. My mother, Elsie, was first cousin to your father's father. That makes me a second cousin to your father, James, and a second cousin once removed to you."

Harry stuffs his mouth full of cake so he doesn't say something stupid, but his heart is bursting with hope. That _ought _to mean, it has to mean, that he can live with Leon, too. He knows that he won't have the blood protection Dumbledore told him about on their house because Leon is his father's relative and not his mother's, but at the moment, he doesn't care.

"Can—do you think I can live with you?" he finally blurts, when some time has gone by in silence and Leon just spends it drinking his tea instead of eating or talking.

Leon blinks. "Oh, of course. That's not in doubt. A magical relative always has first claim over any Muggle relatives that a wizard has. And of course it depends on the will of the child. I would wager that you're glad to be away from those relatives of yours."

Harry might have bristled if his voice was pitying, but it just sounds so completely _understanding _that Harry finds himself saying, "They're horrible. They hate me. No one else seems to think they're that bad except the Weasleys, but—they are. Did you have to go through something like that yourself, sir?"

Leon gives him a wistful smile. "Sort of, yes. Your father's parents were very old when they had him. Likewise, my mother was old when she had me. Sometimes I think that she must have used some potions or very dark magic indeed, perhaps magic she was ashamed of. But she wanted a child. She died of old age when I was seven, and I was then taken into the Muggle world because my mother had no siblings and her cousins didn't want to acknowledge me."

Harry feels as though someone has filled the underside of his skin with scalding water. "I'm surprised you want to adopt me, then. I mean, if my father was one of the cousins who didn't want to acknowledge you."

Leon shakes his head. "It wasn't your father's fault, Harry. He was just my age. I don't blame him. And things were different in those days about what relatives were wise to claim. I—well, I haven't _entirely _forgiven Fleamont Potter, but he died when James was young, too. I like to think that James might have reached out to me if he knew I existed. But it wouldn't have been wise for me to make myself known to him."

"Why not?"

"I was a spy, Harry. During the war. The first war with Voldemort, I mean."

Harry stares at him with his mouth open. How brilliant is _that_? His cousin was a spy! And someone who isn't afraid to say Voldemort's name, too!

"Is that why you knew all those things you told Professor Dumbledore? About Moody, I mean?"

Leon nods. "There were Death Eaters who knew of my mother's, um, indiscretion and approached me because they thought I must be bitter, living as an outcast in the Muggle world. I attended a wizarding school in the States, you see, but then I came back to Britain. I pretended to agree with the Death Eaters, but in reality, I was spying for Dumbledore's side."

"Why didn't he know you, then?"

"I always disguised myself when I gave them information, or pretended it had come from somewhere else. It suited my sense of drama at the time. I was also very young then, only twenty. And I knew that James was fighting with Dumbledore. I thought I might—I might prove to him that I was someone worth knowing, if we both survived the war and I could tell him that I was the one who had sometimes alerted them to the Death Eaters' attacks."

Leon looks wistful again. Harry swallows the last of his cake. "I'm sorry that you never got to know my father."

"It's all right. I'm going to get to know _you_, aren't I?" Leon smiles at him. "And I've spent the last few years traveling and hearing rumors of Voldemort's survival. That was how I knew it was time to come back to Britain again. I want to take care of you, Harry. But I'll also be doing some fighting."

"That's okay. That's _brilliant_. Are you going to be a spy again?"

For some reason, that seems to amuse Leon. "Of a sort. Have you finished your tea yet? We should probably go tell your friends and professors the truth before they rip this school apart looking for you."

* * *

Hermione and Ron are both concerned for him, and Harry has to admit that he's going to be careful around Leon. He's not going to tell him that much about what he's gone through in the past years, of course, and he's not going to spill Ron and Hermione's secrets ever. After all, if Professor Moody was really someone using Polyjuice, Leon could be _anyone_.

But the thing is, the thing that Harry doesn't plan to tell Ron and Hermione, is that Leon seems to know it all already. Once he refers casually to the basilisk that Harry killed in second year. Once he says that he knows Snape hates Harry, and it's unfair, but Harry should do his best to be respectful in class anyway.

"It's one way to learn things," Leon says, and then he smiles at Harry, and Harry thinks he looks really familiar. Maybe he saw a family member in the Mirror of Erised with a face like that. "Besides, being polite to him is going to infuriate Professor Snape until he can't speak."

Leon is staying in the castle, partially because no one can keep him out, Harry thinks in amazement. Dumbledore told him he had to leave. Leon agreed, and then he appeared from a side corridor one morning and winked at Harry and walked away. He did tell Harry that he's trying to get Sirius cleared and also adopt Harry at the same time.

Harry has a conversation with Sirius in a cave up in the hills when Sirius insists on coming back to Britain, and it's sort of unpleasant. Sirius doesn't believe that Leon is who he says he is. He insists that Elsie Potter hated everyone and would never have had a kid.

"But he's nice and he's smart and he's funny," Harry argues back. "And if he was working for Voldemort or something, he could have grabbed me any time and taken me straight there." He rubs his forehead. He keeps having dreams about Pettigrew and Voldemort. Leon looked concerned when Harry told him, and said that he'll get Harry books on Occlumency, which is a way of defending your mind against things like that.

"He said he worked for Voldemort, though! Does he have the Dark Mark?"

Harry shakes his head. "No. I asked him to show me his left arm the second week. There's nothing there."

Sirius growls a little to himself and gets up and paces back and forth. "I just worry, pup. Someone pops out of nowhere the moment that someone else enters you in the Tournament? It's a little _too _convenient for me not to worry."

"But there was a plot to get me into the Tournament!" Harry knows that because the Ministry questioned Barty Crouch, Jr., who was happy to rant about his loyalty to Voldemort, and there was a report in the papers about it. "Why didn't Leon just go along with that if he wanted to capture me and take me to Voldemort?"

"I don't know. Honestly, I don't." Sirius turns around and grips his shoulders, staring earnestly into Harry's eyes. "But be _careful_, all right? Because maybe Leon is going to try and get you to trust him, and then someday he'll turn on you when you don't expect it."

"I'll be careful," Harry promises, but he doesn't intend to stop sending letters to Leon, or visiting the bedroom in the base of Gryffindor Tower that Leon has taken over for himself.

* * *

"I'm so glad I don't have to compete in the Tournament," Harry says, and he's shaking as he collapses into the little chair in Leon's quarters that has become his.

"That's one reason I'm glad I could interfere when I did." Leon's face is serious as he hands Harry a warming mug of tea, the one he always makes when Harry comes here. "You wouldn't want to face dragons at fourteen years old."

"I don't want to face dragons _ever_."

Leon smiles at him. "Sensible, Harry. I know some of your professors think you're longing to jump straight into danger, but you never wanted to, did you?"

"No, I only did that because my professors were _stupid_," Harry says, and finds himself telling Leon all about the time he and Ron tried to persuade Lockhart to come with them to investigate the basilisk. He stops short before he can say that Ron's wand was the one that made Lockhart forget everything. But Leon just laughs.

"Yes, I faced something similar when I was young." Leon hesitates and spends a moment playing with the edge of his teacup. "How much progress are you making in Occlumency?" Weirdly, Harry has the sense that it's not what Leon really wants to talk about.

"Some. I don't have the dreams as often now. But my scar still hurts."

Leon nods. "We can work on that over the—holidays." Then he speaks all in a rush. "But one thing you'll need to decide, Harry, is whether you want to live with Sirius or me."

"You said I was going to live with _you_."

"And I did mean that, Harry. I do mean it. But it should be your decision. And Sirius is going to have his name cleared by Christmas. I don't blame you if you would prefer to live with him. You know him better than you know me."

"Not really," Harry says honestly, and Leon blinks at him. "I've spent a lot more time with you than him. I mean, that's not his fault, he has to be on the run, but I've only seen him a few times. I spend hours with you every week. I want to stay with you. But Sirius can visit, right?"

Leon's face relaxes into a smile. "Of course. And I have a large garden where a dog would be welcome."

Harry has never told him about Sirius's Animagus form, either, but Leon has already referred to his dad's, so Harry supposes it's not a surprise that he knows Sirius's, too. He does wonder, as Leon refills his teacup and goes on to talk about more ordinary things, how Leon _always _knows.

* * *

Harry stares at the front page of the paper on Christmas Day. Leon really _did _it. Sirius _does _have his name cleared by Christmas.

_PETER PETTIGREW THE POTTER TRAITOR!_

The paper goes on to talk about how "unknown do-gooders" found Peter Pettigrew and brought him to the Aurors. By the time that the Aurors began to question Peter, he'd already been dosed to the gills on Veritaserum. He confessed all of his crimes in a slow, monotone voice that sounds as if it drove the Aurors mental. There was some confusion about whether they could admit testimony under Veritaserum when they didn't know if Pettigrew had agreed to take it, but on the other hand, someone had argued, they didn't know he _hadn't _agreed.

So Peter is in Azkaban now, and Sirius is free. The newspaper gushes about the details of the Ministry's official apology and how they're transferring a bunch of Galleons to Sirius's vault as atonement, effective immediately.

Harry falls back in his chair and stares across the table at Leon, who's patiently picking fruit out of his porridge. He's explained to Harry that his house-elves always put it in there because they think he should have something other than plain porridge and toast for breakfast, and they cry when Leon asks them to stop, so Leon is resigned to clearing his breakfast every morning.

"Happy Christmas, Harry," Leon says, when he notices Harry's stare.

Harry puts the paper aside. "How did you find him? There must be so many places for a rat to hide!"

Leon nods absently and pushes his fringe out of his eyes. There's a faded scar there, where Leon told Harry someone once tried to slice off the top of his skull to take out his brains for a necromancy ritual. "There are. But there are some tracking spells you can use if you don't mind sacrificing a bit of blood. I don't. It's illegal in the Ministry, though, and they might not have believed they had to search for a dead man, anyway."

Harry looks at the paper again and feels his heartbeat pick up. Sirius is really free. Because of Leon, who Sirius still doesn't like or trust.

But then again, there's no reason to think that Leon did this for Sirius. He did it for _Harry_. Because he knows Harry loves Sirius and worries about him and would love if he was a free man, too.

Harry puts the paper carefully aside and then goes over and flings his arms around Leon. Leon makes a resigned noise as his bowl of porridge tips over, but he puts his arms around Harry and hugs him back.

"Happy Christmas," Leon repeats into his hair.

The books Leon got Harry on Occlumency and hexes, and the nice warm winter cloak in Gryffindor colors, are fun gifts, too, but Harry has his real gift already, and you can't put it in under a tree. His real _two _gifts, since Leon also found and renovated one of the old Potter houses that his dad used to live in (and maybe bought it from whoever owned it until this year, Leon doesn't say).

Leon is the most brilliant thing that's ever happened to Harry, and he doesn't care what _anybody_ says.


	2. Chapter 2

Harry wakes up with a gasp. Then he lies back down in his bed and frowns up at the canopy. He and Leon are still working hard on Occlumency, but it doesn't always block the dreams from Voldemort. At least Harry is only getting a flash now and then of something disgusting Voldemort is doing, and he seems mostly helpless, stuck in his baby body without anyone to help him.

Harry gets up and wanders out of his bedroom. Then he grabs the Invisibility Cloak and goes down the stairs, out of the Tower altogether and onto the Hogwarts grounds. He wants to sit outside in the cold and watch the stars. Sometimes that sends him back to sleep.

He ends up going over to Hagrid's hut, because someone is sitting on a stump outside it, and that's so unusual that it intrigues Harry. It's all the more so when he can see the person is Leon, and when Leon turns his head and looks right at Harry despite the Cloak draped over his shoulders.

"Couldn't sleep?" Leon asks quietly.

Harry shakes his head and takes his place next to Leon. "Dreams from Voldemort. What about you?"

Leon smiles in a way that says he's not going to tell Harry everything, which always annoys Harry, but less from Leon than anyone else. "Dreams, yes. And I've had a thought which troubles me very much, but which I can't prove."

"What is it?"

Leon hesitates for long enough that Harry scowls at him. He thought Leon wasn't like _those _adults who thought he didn't have a right to know Sirius Black was his bloody godfather, but here he is, acting like them.

Leon finally sighs and says, "I wondered why Dumbledore seemed so disturbed by me. He still is, more than he was by the man playing Alastor Moody who tried to make you compete in the Tournament. And I keep thinking-Harry, I keep thinking that he had plans for you that I disrupted by being here."

"What kinds of plans?" Harry whispers. His throat is dry and it hurts, and he has to clear it and continue on before he can speak normally again. "What plans?"

"Plans about how to use you in the war." Leon turns around on the stump to face him. "There shouldn't be any reason that Dumbledore hasn't taken more of a stance against Voldemort or at least asked you about your dreams once I told him we were studying Occlumency. But it's as though he's content to wait. As though he knows something neither of us does or needs something that neither of us does."

Harry's throat is really dry now. "You think he needs me to do something?"

Leon nods. "And I need to find out. Or I need to do something that will make his plans irrelevant. I know I can do it. There's one move he wouldn't have any protection against. I've been hesitating because it would require your cooperation, and I'm not sure how you would feel about moving against your Headmaster."

"I want to be involved," Harry says instantly. "I always do, but most of the time, no one says I can be, they just don't _do _anything and then get upset when I get involved!"

Leon studies him, then nods. "All right. But it's also going to involve me telling you lots of secrets."

"I want to know them!"

"About me. About who I am."

Harry hesitates. Leon has been the best thing that ever happened to him. Does he want to disrupt that and maybe get some answers that he doesn't want?

But he trusts Leon _because _he's the best thing that ever happened to Harry. He sits up and nods. "I'm ready."

* * *

They're in the sitting room in front of the fire. Leon seems uncomfortable, but also committed to doing this, which is all Harry can ask for.

Harry watches intently as Leon reaches up and traces his wand over his forehead. The skin moves like it's peeling off, and then there's—a lightning bolt scar there.

Harry stares. It feels like he's pretty much incapable of doing anything else. Like all his strength has been stolen away.

Leon looks at him, and Harry stares into his face again. Now it seems impossible that he didn't recognize the eyes that are—his own. Of course, it helped that he never thought he would grow into anyone so powerful and brilliant.

"So you're—from another world?" Harry whispers.

"From the future," Leon corrects. "I lived through what you did, and I couldn't stand it. I spent so much time not acknowledging what happened to me that I did terrible things. I lost control of my magic. It burned a bunch of people alive. And that was the least of it." Leon lets out a slow, shuddering breath. "I came back to take care of you the way someone should have taken care of me."

"But _I'm _you."

Leon smiles at him. Harry can't imagine himself smiling that way, either. Well, maybe now he can, now that he's been with Leon for a little while. "I'm aware."

"It's mental." Harry starts to laugh and then stops, because _he _sounds mental when he does that. "But how did you do it? Why didn't the future just collapse? Why did you decide to come here instead of coming and rescuing me from the Dursleys?"

"I made a sacrifice," Leon says simply. "I sacrificed my own future. All of it. The horrible things I did. The good I achieved. The sacrifice of a future essentially unraveled the time _before _I traveled in time, and made it as if it had never been. And I came back here because this was the only point I could reach. The sacrifice only granted me so much. Not a whole lifetime to have you and raise you." He leans forwards with his elbows on his knees and smiles at Harry. It's a smile full of pain this time, and Harry looks away. _Now _he totally believes Leon is him. "I wish I could have. You're a great kid, Harry."

"I'm _you_. Don't you just feel like you're talking to a mirror?"

Leon shakes his head. "Not anymore. We're different enough at this point that I'm hopeful the future won't happen. And—" He sighs. "I'm going to make sure that Voldemort and Dumbledore can't use you the way they want to."

"How?" Harry is whispering. The world seems to be spinning a little, dancing around an axis he never knew existed.

"Do you know what a Horcrux is?" But then Leon snorts lightly. "Of course not. I didn't when I was you. A Horcrux is a container for a bit of soul. Dark wizards sometimes use them to maintain their immortality. As long as the soul is anchored to the object, they can't die. It takes a murder, and that's just the first of it."

Harry shivers. "That's what Voldemort used?"

Leon nods. "But Voldemort made seven of them, where nobody before him was stupid enough to make more than one. And one was accidental." He reaches out, and his fingers gently point at Harry's scar without touching it.

Harry tries to hyperventilate. Tries, because Leon is hugging him, his head bowed and his voice gentle. "I didn't react any better the first time I found out. It's all right. That's why I can help you, Harry. I can pull that Horcrux out of you and bind it to _my _scar. And now I know a different method to get rid of it than the first time."

"What did you do the first time?" Now a stranger's voice is coming out of Harry's mouth.

"I had to walk up and let Voldemort hit me with a Killing Curse."

Harry promptly hits Leon in the shoulder with a fist. "You're _not _doing that!"

"No, I'm not." Leon kisses his lightning bolt scar, and it's such a weird sensation, but Harry doesn't care if Leon is _him_, somehow. What really matters is that he's also the person who's taken the best care of Harry. "Like I said, I know a different way. We'll get this done, Harry. You're going to live. You're going to have a happier life."

"So are _you_, or what's the point?"

"Oh, Harry. I already do."

* * *

The ritual to remove the Horcrux from Harry's scar and bind it to Leon's—Harry can't really think of him as Harry Potter—happens on the stroke of midnight on the spring equinox. Leon tried to explain what was so special about that day, but Harry was too nervous to absorb much. He does know there's a _lot _of green involved.

The color of spring. The color of the Killing Curse and his eyes and Slytherin and too many bloody things to imagine.

Harry lies back on the grass, his arms and legs wrapped with green scarves. Leon stands in front of him, singing softly in Latin. Or, well, Harry supposes that he's chanting, but singing is really what it sounds like, soft and rhythmic and rising and falling.

Then, abruptly, the grass seems to heave. Harry catches his breath, but he isn't really standing or moving himself. In fact, he's not even in the middle of an earthquake, which is what he thought at first. Instead, he watches as a peak of skin rises up in front of him—is that his own _forehead_?—and then something black wrenches itself out of him.

It zooms towards Leon, who faces it and doesn't back away. His singing becomes more intense, though, and his wand bounds back and forth in front of him as though it's going to fly out of his hand any second. The black thing has to stop moving, and Leon nods and says something else in song that almost sounds as though he's speaking to the Horcrux.

Harry shudders. He doesn't mind Leon speaking to it so much, but what if it _listens_? Harry doesn't like thinking of it being able to listen.

Leon laughs, suddenly.

Harry feels as if the Horcrux freezes, and he wants to do much the same thing. Hearing Leon laugh—

He's never felt less like him. Leon might talk all he likes about Harry's innocence and how he came back to preserve it, and it sounds like Leon did horrible things in the future, but Harry wants to be the kind of person who laughs like that.

_Maybe I still can be, _is what he's thinking when the Horcrux zooms forwards and join with Leon's scar. Leon lets out a single, pained breath that falls quickly back into his normal rhythm of breathing. Harry glares at him, but Leon doesn't undo the charms that protect Harry from the Horcrux's influence and also keep him still for a moment. He seems to be grimacing and just barely resisting the urge to claw at his forehead.

Harry is very glad, when Leon banishes the scarves and nods at Harry that he can move, that Harry gets to get up and hug his—himself. His friend. His father. His elder brother.

Harry doesn't know what exactly he would say that Leon is now. He's just glad that he's there.

* * *

Harry shifts cautiously in his chair. He doesn't actually know why Leon wanted to have this meeting with Dumbledore and Sirius. Leon has acted like he likes both of them but distrusts them at the same time—although it's mostly not distrust when he talks about Sirius. Instead, deep sadness fills his eyes.

Harry hasn't asked about that yet. Knowing Leon comes from the future, he's not actually sure he wants to hear what happened to Sirius then.

Leon has his hands quietly folded on his stomach. Sirius is bouncing his leg in his chair across the office, eyes bright with suspicion. Headmaster Dumbledore is smiling, but Harry thinks something's different about it. Maybe he's not as calm? Maybe he's trying to be mysterious like usual, but it isn't working right now, for some reason?

"Lemon drop?"

Leon shakes his head, although his eyes flicker in a way that makes Harry think Leon used to be familiar with that saying, too. "No, thank you, Headmaster. I asked for this meeting here because I wanted to discuss what I plan for Voldemort's Horcruxes."

Dumbledore's face pales so fast that Harry honestly thinks he might faint. Then Sirius yells, "What?"

"Horcruxes," Leon says. "That's how he maintains his immortality. There was one in Harry's scar until last week. I took it out and bound it to myself."

Harry has to bite his lip very hard so that he doesn't laugh. He loves Sirius and he likes the Headmaster, but it's really funny to see how surprised they are.

Sirius is gaping back and forth between Leon and the Headmaster, but then he shakes his head and says, "Did you _know _about this, Albus?"

"It is not something that should have been revealed." The Headmaster is looking steadily at Leon, who shrugs. Harry shrinks back in his chair as he feels a hot, hard knot appear in his stomach. That isn't the same as saying that _no_, he didn't know.

"So you were going to kill Harry to get rid of Voldemort? You were going to kill my godson?" Sirius sounds as if he has the same sort of hard, hot knot, but it's in the middle of his mouth and making him almost spit the words out.

"I was going to do what was necessary, Sirius."

"Which would have been _sacrificing my godson_!"

Harry looks over when he feels a hand on his shoulder. Leon is holding him with a gentle touch. He gives Harry a faint smile and then casts a charm. It floats like a red feather into the middle of the argument, and Harry can't see what good it's going to do. Both Sirius and the Headmaster are too upset right now to pay attention to anyone else.

Then the feather explodes into a pinwheeling firework, and makes a blue phoenix appear in a lovely outline in the air. Harry gasps. Fawkes chirps approvingly from his perch. Sirius sits back down in his chair with a sharp blink.

The Headmaster is the one who looks at Leon. "I've never seen a spell like that."

"I've learned a lot," Leon says, and smiles. "Now. We're getting away from the purpose of the conversation. What _are _we going to do now that we can't just follow whatever plan you might have had for the Horcrux in Harry, sir?"

* * *

"I suppose now I know how you know everything."

Leon laughs lightly, standing back from the charred circle in the grass where a kind of flame he calls Fiendfyre has eaten a locket they took from Sirius's house and a diadem from a special room in Hogwarts. Harry can't wait to go back and use that room for more things, but he's glad as hell that the Horcrux isn't in it anymore. That would have been uncomfortable. "It does explain things, right?'

"Are you going to let Dumbledore and Sirius help you?" Harry bounces beside Leon as they walk back towards Hogwarts from the clearing deep in the Forbidden Forest. He has no fears as long as Leon is right next to him.

"I don't know if I should," Leon says. "I know Sirius wants to, but he has a habit of charging in first and then agonizing about it later—but not enough." From the look in his eyes, Leon knows something specific he isn't going to tell Harry, again. Harry shrugs. He still trusts Leon.

"And in the original future when Dumbledore encountered one particular Horcrux, it tempted him to pick it up and use it," Leon continues.

Harry jerks to a stop. Leon puts a hand on his shoulder to gently push him along, reminding him without words that they _are_ in the Forbidden Forest at night. But Harry still has to say something. "How can anyone be that _stupid, _though?" he asks in wonder.

"It was a unique circumstance that may not repeat itself. It still makes me uneasy about asking Dumbledore to help us, though. But if you think we should, I'll listen to you."

Harry's chest swells. Leon listens and talks to him, the way he always wanted to be listened and talked to. Of course, Leon has kind of an unfair advantage because he lived through everything Harry did and knows exactly how much it hurts to be left out and not listened to.

But Harry doesn't care. The fact that Leon is here and listening to him is a lot more important than anything else.

"No," Harry says, after thinking about it for a bit. "I don't think that would be a good idea. Maybe the same thing would happen again. And maybe Dumbledore would think that he knew better and try to persuade me to help him with whatever plan he wanted me to help him with in the first place." He pauses, not sure that last sentence made sense, but Leon is smiling and nodding.

"Yes, that was the way I thought of it, too." He reaches out and gently squeezes Harry's shoulder. "I'm glad that, although of course my life has changed me a lot, we can still be so much the same."

Harry beams up at him.

* * *

"You got all angry at Dumbledore picking up the Horcrux and putting it on," Harry says, scowling, furious, rubbing healing potion into Leon's swollen hand. "And then you did the same thing, didn't you?"

"Honestly, no." Leon watches his own hand, which is propped up on the table in his quarters, with a kind of clinical interest that reminds Harry of Madam Pomfrey. He doesn't want to think about that, though, so he shivers and doesn't. "But there was one defense near the door that I wasn't expecting."

"What was that?"

"A snake."

Harry's hands stop for a second, and then he goes on rubbing the potion in. "Can you talk to snakes?"

"Yes." Leon eyes him. "It was a power that remained even after the Horcrux was gone. But I would prefer that you not _repeat _that to anyone, please."

"You can count on me," Harry says, and thinks again how different Leon is from most adults around him, that he trusts Harry with things. Well, so does Sirius, but then he has those strange silences around things like who his mum's best friends were. "But why did your hand swell up if the snake was hiding on the ground?"

"It was hiding higher up," Leon says, and shakes his head with a grimace. "Nailed to the door, in fact."

"The _door_? But I thought Voldemort liked snakes."

Leon shrugs, his shoulders moving up and down in a way that makes Harry envious for a second. He's small and skinny still, and although Leon assures him that he will, it's hard to believe that he'll grow as strong as Leon someday. "I think maybe one of his Gaunt ancestors left it there, to tell you the truth. But it bit me when I opened the door and brought my hand too close to its skeleton."

Harry decides that he doesn't really want to ask any more about that. He has enough to do with smearing healing potions into Leon's hand right now.

And beyond things like this, surprisingly, he has a pretty much normal life. He does homework, and he talks to Sirius, and he spends time with Ron and Hermione (though sometimes he has to just pretend not to hear their questions about Leon).

"You said that you were going to come and give a lecture to our Defense class," he says finally, sitting back and admiring the way that the red swelling in Leon's hand is shrinking. Potions are a lot more useful than Snape ever made him think, but then again, Leon is a lot better teacher than Snape, too.

"I did, didn't I?"

"Could you do it tomorrow?"

Leon lifts his eyebrows. "Is there something special about tomorrow?"

"Only that the latest Auror from the Ministry is a really boring lecturer." Harry squirms a little when Leon's eyes pin him to his seat. "Um, and also, he said that we might have a practice exam. I want something other than an exam."

Leon laughs. "You realize that even if he agrees to let me speak, it will only put off the exam for a few days?"

"But that's a few days when I don't have to study!" Harry says, and then catches Leon's eye again. "I mean, days I could be using to study?"

As Leon's warm laughter surrounds him, Harry has to admit that he's glad that Leon came back in time, even though it means (and Harry is guilty for thinking this) that he suffered in his future.

* * *

"I just want to know who you _are, _that's all."

Harry frowns in displeasure as he walks around the corner towards Leon's door and finds that Hermione is standing in front of it with her hands on her hips. Harry understands why Hermione wants to know more about Leon, he really does. If he didn't already know the answer, the mystery would be driving him crazy.

But the thing is, he's also allowed to have secrets. Hermione kept the secret of the Time-Turner from him last year, and Harry doesn't think she would really have shared it with him if she hadn't been forced to. He should be allowed to have secrets she doesn't pry into, too. That's just the way it works.

"You know who I am. Leon Potter. And I'm sure Harry has shared the degree of relation we have with you."

Leon's voice is soft and fond. Harry realizes abruptly that he must have known Hermione, maybe even had the exact same friendship that Harry and _his _Hermione have. That's so bloody weird to think about.

"But there's more than that. You're going to tell me."

Harry blinks, a little horrified. He's never heard Hermione talk to a professor like that. Well, technically he supposes Leon isn't a professor, but he has lectured them and taught a few spells to some of the students who wanted to learn. Hermione is bossing Leon around like—

Like he's Harry.

Harry starts to speak up, because he's horrified and thinks she might have figured out the truth, but Leon calmly meets his eye and shakes his head the barest amount, so small that Hermione doesn't even look over her shoulder. Then he smiles at Hermione, but there's something firm and unyielding behind that smile. Harry's glad to see it.

"Miss Granger. Your curiosity does you credit. But there are things that an adult doesn't have to share with the people he doesn't want to share them with."

Harry breathes out slowly. That's something that he hasn't thought about before, a definition of adulthood, but the more he thinks about it, the more he likes it. He should be allowed to be an adult and have secrets, too, instead of having to tell everything to his friends or to Dumbledore at the end of the year.

And now he and Leon have a secret together.

"But I want to _know_!" And Hermione stomps her foot, something Harry hasn't seen her do since first year.

Leon straightens up at that. "Miss Granger, just because you want to know doesn't mean you get to. And this means of asking is rude. I was told by all your professors, and by Harry, that you were a polite young woman. I am surprised and disappointed to find you disproving what they told me."

Harry sighs behind his hand. Leon is so _calm._ That's the thing that Harry really wants to imitate, and doesn't think he'll be able to.

Hermione's eyes widen. Harry thinks for a moment she's going to burst into tears, but she only turns red. "Sorry, Mr. Potter," she mutters. "But I really want to know."

"Maybe someday I'll tell you. But demanding the truth from me isn't a good way to get it."

Hermione stays for a minute or so after that, but then leaves, and Harry ducks back around the corner so she doesn't see him. She would be humiliated if she knew that he'd witnessed that confrontation.

Harry steps out after that, and the first thing he asks, even though he'd intended to ask if Leon got the Horcrux in Gringotts, is, "You're not really going to tell her, are you?"

Leon shakes his head, a weary smile on his lips. "No. It would be overstepping certain boundaries I would rather keep in place, separating the past and the future. And—honestly, she doesn't _need _to know, Harry."

Harry relaxes. He wants this to remain between him and Leon so _badly. _He just doesn't get a lot of what he wants. But with Leon around, he's getting more of it.

"The thing you went to get?" he asks then, and grins when Leon holds up a melted, slagged thing that might once have been a golden cup.

"How did you get it?" he adds, because Leon had been the most worried about this Horcrux. He said the goblins wouldn't let it go unless they had something to trade for it.

"I shared the secret of how I traveled in time," Leon says, but he only says it once they're inside his quarters with the door shut firmly behind them. "That was what they wanted. The minute they saw me, they knew that I wasn't from this time."

Harry blinks. "But you said that you had to burn all the possibilities that you could have had. So—would they be able to use it?"

"Not without great sacrifice." Leon has a wicked grin, and once again, Harry can only imagine that someday he'll be that awesome. "But that's not really my problem, is it? I kept the bargain."

Harry laughs, imagining the expression on the goblins' faces.

Leon's expression becomes serious then, and Harry sits up, seeing what he looks like and thinking something bad is about to happen. But all Leon does is reach out and ruffle his hair, and continue looking serious.

"I keep the bargains I make," Leon repeats softly. "That includes the one to take care of you. I want you to remember that, no matter what happens. I'm going to have to do some things that are dangerous to get rid of the Horcrux I transferred to me and the one that Voldemort put into his snake. But I promise, I will come back to you."

"His _snake_? Yuck."

Leon laughs then. "Yes, well, Voldemort isn't known for his commitment to standards of good conduct embraced by other people." His amusement slips away then, and his eyes fix themselves intently on Harry. "Are you listening to me? Are you going to believe me when I say that I'll come back?"

Harry takes a deep breath. He's known what destroying these Horcruxes was leading up to, a battle with Voldemort, and he's also known that he won't be fighting that battle.

Except that, in a weird way, he will be, and the prophecy Leon told him about will be fulfilled after all. Just more than once by the same person.

"Yeah."

And then Leon hugs him, hard and fierce, and Harry hugs him back and repeats the guilty words in his head.

He's so _glad _Leon came back in time.

* * *

In the end, the papers carry at least three different versions of the story.

There's the one where Leon faces down You-Know-Who in a decaying house and destroys him with some kind of clever spell that the papers refuse to name, because "it might make too much of an impression on the young and foolish." That's code, Harry suspects, for the fact that they had no idea what spell Leon used. You-Know-Who's body supposedly dissolved in a flash of green light.

Then there's the one where there was an epic battle in a graveyard where supposedly Tom Marvolo Riddle's father was buried. That story is the one that reveals Voldemort's Muggle background for the first time, and Harry listens hard for the screams of denial to erupt from the Slytherin common room. To his disappointment, he doesn't hear any.

Malfoy is rather pale and shaken-looking for days after that revelation, though, which Harry will take.

And then there's the story that claims Leon used Fiendfyre to kill both the snake and You-Know-Who. That one is the most confused, because it also says something about how the fire really wasn't Fiendfyre—mostly because no one wants to arrest the defeater of Voldemort for using Dark Arts, Harry thinks—and how Leon supposedly used it on himself, too. But then, Leon is letting bits and pieces of the real story out one at a time, so that people won't get the idea it was Horcruxes.

"You think someone would really imitate him?" Harry asks, as he visits Leon in the hospital wing where he's recovering from magical exhaustion.

Leon shrugs. He has a cold wet cloth on his forehead to soothe the headache that came about, Harry knows, from the removal of the Horcrux, although Madam Pomfrey just thinks it's some magical condition that it's dangerous to use potions on. "I know at least one person who tried to make Horcruxes."

"Where you came from?"

Leon nods to him with a warning glint in his eyes. He doesn't have to worry, though. Harry is only ever going to refer to it like that when other people could overhear them. "Yes. Luckily, she didn't succeed, but she definitely didn't intend to just make one."

Harry sighs and sits down next to him. It feels a little anticlimactic, sometimes, that he just let Leon handle everything, and he knows that it drives Dumbledore and Hermione mental that they don't know everything.

But he's _glad _it worked out this way. Leon handled things, and Harry got to just be an ordinary student (apart from the fact that he lay awake all of one night hoping against hope that Leon would come back). He didn't have to be in the Tournament. He didn't have to fight the Horcruxes, or worry about somehow getting rid of the one in himself. He even appreciated the fact that he took exams like a _normal student _yesterday.

"What happens now?" he asks.

"What do you mean?" Leon shifts the cold cloth on his forehead, and grimaces. "Can you cast a Cooling Charm on this one? I'm not supposed to do any magic right now."

Harry snickers as he takes out his holly wand and casts the charm. "And you're actually going to _listen _to Madam Pomfrey?"

"Why not? I have a chance at living now, and in a better world."

Harry swallows as some of his fears come rushing back. "Well, that's what I meant."

"Still need a little more than that, Harry."

"I mean—you came here to help me and keep me out of the Tournament, and then you fought Voldemort. Are you—do you still want to take care of me? Since everything you came here for is done—"

Leon sits up, which he's not supposed to do, and throws his free arm around Harry. "Of course, Harry. Of course, kid. Sorry for making you think that I'd _ever_ give up on that."

Harry clings back hard, feeling tears stab at his eyes. "It's not anything you did. Anything you said. It's just—stupid. After the Dursleys, it's hard to believe that anyone would want me permanently."

"It's not stupid. I felt something like that myself." Leon's hands are so tight that Harry gasps for a second, but he pulls gently back. "We can do whatever you want. You can spend the summer with me, or visiting Sirius, or finding a different house for us, or playing Quidditch. You're free."

Harry stares into Leon's eyes. He doesn't care if someone is listening right now, he has to say this. "So are you."

He gets a secret smile that thrills him with how strong it is. But Leon says only, "I know," and his hands give the other message.

_I love you._

Harry has been waiting so long to hear it from an adult, and he doesn't care that it was his older self who traveled in time. Leon has given him everything he ever wanted. This is _their _peace, and they're going to enjoy the hell out of it.

**The End.**


End file.
